Whodunit? Ship Sails As Plot Thickens On Murder/mystery Cruise.

PEOPLE

Looking down from the second-story deck, curious passengers hang over the rail watching the crew struggle to lop the woman`s limp body onto the smaller boat.

``What happened, somebody sick?`` says a woman.

``No ma`am,`` says Mel Dubin, cruise operations manager.

``Dead.``

As in doornail.

The Love Boat it isn`t.

Welcome to a Murder/Mystery Cruise on the Intracoastal.

Producer Jan McArt`s newest venture aboard the cruise ship M/V Florida Princess, departs the Las Olas city dock in Fort Lauderdale at sundown. Where else can you get dinner, a cruise and a murder for $31.95?

As soon as the ship sets sail the plot unfurls. One by one actors and actresses drop obvious clues and stage loud confrontations. To figure out who is who hang on every word. Follow every movement. Compare notes.

``This is too much,`` says Mary Scott of Davie as she inches closer to a suspicious man holding a leather bag. ``Shhh. What did he say?``

At the end of the cruise detective Jonathan Peeps will want to know what you have learned.

That is the question. Could it be the man with the Italian accent? What about woman in the gold Dior?

Hmmm.

``You have to get involved,`` says passenger Janet Wilson of Margate as she rounds the staircase. ``You can`t just sit here.``

Wilson is right. If you are going to fish for clues you have to hunt for those red herrings. Sure the plot thickens right before your eyes but if your legs don`t get up and start moving, you will miss the motives, the characters -- the boat.

Stare at people. Leer into dark passegeways. Eavesdrop.

``That`s what makes this fun. People do things here they never would do anywhere else in public,`` says Stephanie Wolff of Lighthouse Point, who, with Carbonell Award-winning director Bob Bogdanoff of Boca Raton, authored McArt`s murder mystery.

``Some mystery cruises give you play money and you can buy clues. This is the ultimate participatory experience. You have to solve it yourself,`` Wolff says.

The dinner buffet -- a selection of carved meats, vegetables, breads, and dessert -- won`t win awards at the Palate Perfect cook-off. But Julia Childs wouldn`t turn it down either. It is tasty.

But food is not the reason we are here. It`s murder.

Before, during and after dinner strange things are happening.

Why does that man frequent the bathroom? The stoop-shouldered guy in the baggy gray suit is staggering drunk after only two drinks? What about that bartender? Didn`t he just switch drinks?

Then it happens. Right there on the floor. Someone yells, ``Oh my God!``. Passengers rally round the fallen body as the ship`s doctor shoves his way through the crowd. ``Out of the way,`` he says. After inspecting the body he shakes his head and signals the crew to take it below. They load it onto a marine patrol boat that speeds away, strobes flashing, sirens blaring.

Detective Peeps calls witnesses into the main dining room for questioning. Everyone is a suspect. Wild accusations fly during the public interrogation. Peeps leads the questioning and passengers report their findings. The murder reports are filled in. Correct quesses are put in a hat and the winner gets two tickets to a McArt show at the Jan McArt Royal Palm Dinner Theater in Boca Raton.

Each night the actors re-create the same murder, with a few variances. But Peeps warns that mums the word: ``We`ve got your name and number,`` he says.

If the warning doesn`t work, Wolff and Bogdanoff have something else up their sleeves.

``If word gets around, we change it. The plot was written so that everyone has a motive and a method.,`` Wolfe says.